14. 1832: Andrew Jackson vetoes the charter renewal of the Second Bank of the United States, and the country will not have a central bank until 1913.

15. 1835: James Gordon Bennett founds the New York Herald and creates the mass media.

16. 1837–43: The first major depression in the United States.

17. 1840: Cyrus McCormick sells his first reaper, beginning the mechanization of agriculture.

18. 1844: Samuel F. B. Morse demonstrates his telegraph, which will revolutionize the speed of communications.

19. 1848: Gold is discovered in California, moving the country’s economic center of gravity sharply westward while setting off an economic boom.

20. 1857–58: The second major depression occurs.

21. 1861–65: The Civil War takes place. It will vastly enlarge the size of the federal government and the national debt, making Wall Street the second-largest securities market in the world, after London, and greatly boosts American industrial production.

22. 1872: Andrew Carnegie visits a steel mill in England and decides to go into steel. By 1900 the Carnegie Steel Company produces a quarter of all American steel.

23. 1873–79: The third major depression occurs.

24. 1879: Thomas Edison perfects the light bulb and begins designing a system to supply households and businesses with electricity, inaugurating the age of electricity.

25. 1887: The Interstate Commerce Commission is created, the first federal regulatory body.

26. 1893–98: The fourth major depression occurs.

27. 1901: United States Steel is organized by J. P. Morgan, in the largest of a wave of mergers that sweeps the American economy beginning in the 1890s.

28. 1903: The Wright Brothers’ first airplane takes off from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, inaugurating the air age.

29. 1907: A panic on Wall Street, aborted by J. P. Morgan, shows the need for a central bank, which is created six years later.

30. 1911: Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States is decided, forcing the breakup of the company under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

31. 1913: Personal income tax begins.

32. 1914: World War I starts, and the United States emerges as the center of the financial world, replacing London.

33. 1920: Commercial radio broadcasts commence, inaugurating the age of electronic media.

34. 1929–33: The fifth, and by far the worst, major depression occurs.

35. 1946: ENIAC, the first digital computer, begins operation.

36. 1947: The transistor is developed. It will greatly reduce the size and cost of electronic equipment.

37. 1951: The credit card is invented, expanding the availability of credit to the middle class.

38. 1968: The first four computers are hooked together into what will become the Internet.

39. 1975: “May Day” marks the end of fixed commissions on Wall Street, which will cause a huge, ongoing expansion in trading as the cost of trading rapidly declines.

40. 1977: The Apple II is introduced, and the era of the personal computer begins.